Tímea Babos (Hungarian pronunciation:[ˈtiːmɛɒˈbɒboʃ]; born 10 May 1993) is a professional Hungarian tennis player. She has won one singles and eight (including one WTA 125K series) doubles titles on the WTA tour as well as eleven singles and nine doubles titles on the ITF circuit in her career. On 20 August 2012, Babos reached her best singles ranking of world number 59. On 3 February 2014, she peaked at world number 26 in the doubles rankings.[1]
Babos is a member of the Gosling tennis academy[2] and resides in Sopron, Hungary.[3]
Two days after winning this title, she participated her first WTA event in Budapest, losing to third seed Timea Bacsinszky in the first round.
In her last junior tournament, the 2010 US Open, she lost in the second round in singles, but won doubles with Stephens, becoming the first junior doubles team to win Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and the US Open in the same year.
2011
Babos continued to mainly participate on the 2011 ITF Women's Circuit. She started the year at her second WTA tournament in Monterrey via wild card, but lost in the first round of qualifying to 138th ranked Aleksandra Wozniak. She then suffered early round exits at her next five ITF tournaments, not getting past the second round of any of them. Babos broke the streak by winning her sixth ITF title at a $25,000 tournament in Astana, Kazakhstan. She defeated Diana Isaeva, Tamara Čurović, eighth seeded Ekaterina Yashina, third seeded Veronika Kapshay, and finally, second seeded Tadeja Majerič, all in straight sets. Despite her success, her ranking fell out of the top 300 from 261 to 301.
Babos used the tournament as a springboard for the rest of the year, as her results improved dramatically afterwards compared to the beginning of her season. She reached the semifinals of another $25,000 tournament in Kristinehamn, falling to second seeded Alexandra Cadanțu in three sets, before winning her seventh ITF title and second of the year at a $25,000 tournament in Stuttgart-Vaihingen as the seventh seed. It was not as easy as Astana, but she won after being pushed to three sets in three matches, including the final. Babos then continued to her home country at the 2011 Budapest Grand Prix where she won her first WTA tour main draw match. She defeated Anna Remondina before falling to eventual champion and top-seeded Roberta Vinci in three close sets. Following Budapest, she broke into the top 200 for the first time, jumping from 231st to 177th. She then proceeded to end her clay court season with a semifinal appearance in La Coruña.
Babos continued her hard court season where she hit her second bad streak of the year, reaching only one quarterfinal in eight tournaments. She entered a $50,000 tournament in Saguenay, Quebec, ranked 181st. There she won her biggest title to date as the third seed. Her first three matches were all in straight sets, before defeating top-seeded Mirjana Lučić, and finally, struggling to a win over fifth seeded American Julia Boserup. Babos then reached the semifinals in a $50,000 tournament in Toronto and a $25,000 tournament in Bratislava. She ended the season with her ninth ITF title in a $25,000 tournament in Helsinki, winning the tournament without dropping a set. Babos finished the year with a 41–19 record, ranked 153rd, having won four ITF tournaments.
In doubles, Babos accumulated similar success in doubles with different partners. She won a $25,000 tournament in Irapuato, Mexico, with Johanna Konta, a $25,000 tournament in Bath, Somerset, with Anne Kremer, a $25,000 tournament in La Coruña with Victoria Larrière, and a $50,000 tournament in Saguenay, Quebec. She also reached the final of four other ITF tournaments. Babos finished the year with a 34–13 record, ranked 161st, and winning four tournaments from eight final appearances.
2012
Babos began the 2012 season at an ITF tournament in Quanzhou, China. She reached the final of the $50,000 event just to fall short against first seeded Kimiko Date-Krumm in straight sets. She entered the qualifiers of the 2012 Australian Open as the 21st seed two weeks later, where after a first round win over Margalita Chakhnashvili she fell to Irena Pavlovic of France.
Babos's next tournament was the 2012 Copa Sony Ericsson Colsanitas in Bogotá. With only one WTA main draw win under her belt before the event, she caused some surprise to reach the semifinals without dropping a single set. In her semifinal she was eventually beaten by Alexandra Panova, who finished runner-up of the tournament.[6]
Babos surpassed this achievement in the following week by winning her first WTA title at the 2012 Monterrey Open. Babos knocked out, among others, number two seed Sara Errani, and number three seed Sorana Cîrstea en route to the final, where she met Alexandra Cadanțu. Babos continued to play on the level she showed throughout the tournament and won the clash without facing a single break point during the match.[6] Following this success, Babos rose from number 107 to number 68 in the next week's WTA ranking to make her top 100 debut.[7]